‘Battered Spouse’ Defense Wins Acquittal in Killing of Husband

A woman portrayed by her lawyer as a battered and mistreated wife was acquitted Saturday in the shooting death of her husband.

Caroline Decker jumped up and hugged her attorney when the jury in Fulton County Court announced the verdict after 10 hours of deliberations. She had been charged with second-degree murder, first-degree and second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

Defense attorney Mark J. Mahoney said the outcome would have a wide impact.

“One key to this case was the very special circumstances, her history as a battered woman,” he said. “Others who defend these types of cases will probably use this as a case study.”

Decker had been accused of firing a single shot from a .25-caliber pistol into her husband, Albert E. Decker, 61, in their home in Broadalbin.

Fulton County Sheriff’s Deputy Susan Furlong testified that Decker had told Undersheriff Thomas Daggett that she shot her husband the night of Sept. 17, 1986.

Decker, 43, testified that she could not remember many of the circumstances surrounding the shooting and could not remember hearing a gun fire.

She also testified that her husband had refused to let her have a telephone, barred her from use of their post office box and ordered her not to tell anyone where they lived to prevent her friends from visiting.

One morning, she said, “I just jumped up in bed and I was handcuffed,” and looking down the barrel of a pistol in her husband’s hand.